Wolf and the Doctor
by VickyVicarious
Summary: "We were probably the only people in this damn town who didn't have a Disney movie to our names." [Frankenwolf; sequel to 'Effulgent']


This is a **sequel** to my other Frankenwolf fic, _Effulgent_. You could probably start from here without too many problems, but there are several references to that fic and I'd recommend reading it first to fully understand this one.

Based on the idea that the _Lady and the Tramp_ spaghetti kiss in 4.04 occurred with Victor and Ruby instead.

* * *

><p>Usually, they're pretty low-key. At least, <em>Ruby<em> is, and Victor's never seemed to mind following her lead. Maybe it's because during the curse Ruby liked to flaunt her sexuality every chance she got and the return of the more literal wolf inside of her has left her feeling less _declarative_ about that sort of thing, or maybe because there are too many cutesy couples in this town already. It doesn't really matter why in the end; the result is the same.

Their first date they go to the movies, and then – after a single desperate night and a year of separation – their second date she brings takeout from the diner to his apartment. Their third date is at the White Rabbit, where they discover that neither one of them is especially skilled at pool and Victor claims to hate dancing but lets her tug him in for a sultry slow song with evident enjoyment. Their fifth date they go for a walk in the woods, and by their sixth date Ruby stops counting because it isn't really even a _date_, just Victor hanging out at the diner like he has been ever since that talk on the docks, and they talk and play cards between orders and he walks her home after and the only real difference from their friendship is the way they touch each other, a hand lingering on his shoulder or fingers skating down her arm or that long long kiss at her door goodnight.

They don't schedule specific outings or make grand gestures or any of that really, just spend time together. It's somehow much easier than expected, like their friendship first and that long year apart have burned away any possible awkwardness, like they're settled, simple, _normal_.

(Victor found out his brother killed himself during that year, and was ready to drink himself to death again. Ruby pretended, pretended, called it nostalgic and searched for his scent long after she'd forgotten exactly what it was.)

And maybe a little bit of it _is_ pretense, is avoidance, because they kiss and hold hands and dance close together but they never do anything _more_ until the day Zelena knocks him out after he delivers Snow's baby. It all turns out okay before Ruby even knows to get involved, but she can smell the angry magic on his skin even hours later. _She_ walks _him_ home that night, and follows him in, and pushes him against a wall to kiss him hard and _frantic_, wrestles him away from where he's heading for the bed to shove him into the shower instead, tells him he stinks and scrubs at him so hard his skin goes raw and red. And Victor – he lets her, closes his eyes and drops his forehead to her shoulder and presses soft kisses to her wet skin. His breath is unsteady and her fingers are shaking, and they both pretend it's just from pleasure.

Ruby wants it to be simple. She doesn't _want_ any more danger or magic or quests to interfere with this. She _ate_ Peter, Billy was killed just for asking her out, and the last time she opened herself up to Victor – she can't bear another year like that. She's seen fairytale romance first-hand, and Ruby knows she isn't like David or Snow. During that year apart – she _gave up_, she thought he was gone forever and she refuses to let that happen again. So… yes, she's taken a step back from most of the heroic stuff; they don't really need her help anyway. And she's keeping things with Victor quiet, not exactly hidden but she's not bragging about him either, she's not turning this into some grand love affair. Monsters don't belong in those.

What they have is fine. They don't really need anything more.

-xxx-

Except Ruby wakes up first. She watches Victor sleeping for a long moment, breathing in his clean, happy scent, and plants a small kiss on his shoulder before getting up to make coffee. When she pads back into the room, it's just in time to see the alarm startle him awake, to observe how he jolts up and grabs for it with shoulders tense and breath catching in his throat. He relaxes a little when he catches sight of the time, and Ruby frowns.

"Got somewhere to be?" she asks, walking closer and offering him a mug. His shoulders drop fully at the sight of her, a smile that's more than just _relieved_ crosses his face (she takes a deep breath).

"No, just checking for color," he mumbles before burying his face in his coffee, and it's – an absentminded answer, nothing he would ever say fully awake, but Ruby's heart _clutches_ in her chest, she can't _breathe_, she's –

She remembers the first time she saw him, after returning to Storybrooke. People were pouring into the diner from all over town, everyone frantic for answers that no one had, and – none of them knew what was going on at the time, none of them could remember a thing. She'd woken up that morning and just _known_ two things with utter, horrible certainty: a year had passed, and Victor was gone (and she hadn't looked for him, in both worlds she _hadn't looked_). But then he'd shown up mid-morning, and she'd caught his scent the second he burst in the door, had shoved forward to meet him, to grab at his arms and just – all she could do was smile at him, whisper that he was _here_, he was really – and he'd been grinning too, wider than she'd ever seen, and she didn't understand _anything _that was happening but somehow in that moment she'd _known_.

She hasn't told him. It felt too fast, too soon, too – too _fairytale_ (and in fairytales, the monsters die).

But standing before him, watching him perform what must be a daily ritual to confirm that he's in the right world… They haven't been involved in the fight with Zelena at all and Victor was _still_ nearly a casualty, and the way they clutched each other last night was anything but simple. Holding back hasn't helped a thing and suddenly Ruby feels downright _reckless_.

She takes the coffee out of his hands and leans down to kiss him awake instead.

-xxx-

They have to wait for a week because Victor has late shifts at the hospital, but he promises he's got a plan. He seems… eager for this, in a way that makes Ruby want to step forward and wrap him up in a hug every time she sees his smile. She'd mostly been joking with her ultimatum – "You'd better take me somewhere _nice_ next time you want this to happen," she'd told him after several more heady kisses than were probably needed to get him fully _alert_, with a wink and nod at his bed – but Victor seems all too eager to go along with it, and she's pretty sure it's not just because he wants her to spend the night again.

(That too, obviously, but – not _just_ that.)

It was always her idea, the keeping quiet – not that Victor is any more inclined to shout things from the rooftop than she is, but he's the one who asked her out to the movies, to the White Rabbit, who openly spends time with her at the diner. She's the one suggesting quiet walks in the woods or eating take-out and playing video games at his house, and while she doesn't regret anything, there's – there's something of a pattern to be found there.

(He wakes up every morning and looks for color. She can't stop thinking about that.)

So she'd honestly expected him to be more prepared when his schedule changed and they actually had the time to go somewhere. She dressed _up_ for this, she let herself get _excited_ –

"Really," she can't help but say. "Really, you're taking me to _Tony's_."

"Yeah," Victor says, with a little edge in his voice like he's not sure why she's bothered but he _is_ annoyed. "Did you have some other place in mind? Because –"

"_Doc!_" They're greeted by Tony himself bustling out of the kitchen and effusing over "_Doctor Whale_, why has it been so long, come in, come in!"

They're bustled right past the line and towards a prime table by the corner of the room and then pretty much shoved into their chairs before either of them have the chance to react. Tony tells them to have a _very nice night_ with a wink at Ruby, then disappears into the kitchen, calling for somebody named Joe.

"I saved his daughter's life in the OR," Victor says, after a moment. "Free meals for life."

"You're the Tramp," Ruby says blankly.

"What?" Victor scowls, adjusts his tie, shifts in his chair until his knee bumps hers under the table and it hits her that he's _nervous_. "Just because I took a free meal doesn't–"

Her hand shoots out across the table to land on his, and suddenly – she can't decide what to feel, is this amusement, or – "No, the _Tramp_. Like in _Lady and the Tramp_, you know, the Disney..."

"I… don't think I've seen that one-"

"It's about _dogs_." Victor stops, and Ruby takes a sip of her water. Her voice is flat, tense, and she still can't tell whether it's because she's trying not to laugh, or – "One's a pet and one's a stray, and – that's you, you're the Tramp, you just –"

"Ruby," Victor says, cautious, but she's. She's not able to –

"We were probably the only people in this damn town who didn't have a Disney movie to their name, and then _you_ –" she's started laughing, which is probably a good thing, because the only other alternative would be to _hit_ something. Because she's _not_ Disney material, she never has been, she's the monster of her own story and so is he, they're horror films, cautionary tales, and this feels like the worst kind of vicious _joke_.

And then Victor rolls his eyes.

"I don't think I know anyone brave enough to call you a pet," he says sardonically, "and trust me, with my salary I'm no tramp either." He sighs, then meets her gaze straight on, and the look in his eyes… Ruby's stopped laughing. She's stopped breathing a little, maybe.

"Second chance, remember?" he says very quietly, and Ruby remembers their conversation on the pier, almost wonders how he knew what she was thinking – but of course he knew, how could he not, he's just like her.

A monster… but human, too. And maybe they aren't the stuff of fairytales, but they don't have to let that define them, wasn't that what tonight is all about? She's been too afraid, since coming back – too tame after all, too scared to do any more than call herself a monster and pretend to be a person, but that's never been true, never been what they are.

Who _cares_ if they're stepping into a Disney movie. At least it was an all right one. They might as well embrace it while it lasts because they're monsters but they're still _here_, they're happy and they're going home together tonight and she's going to tell him. She's – the past doesn't define anything anymore, they can be whatever they want and she wants to be right here, right now.

She squeezes Victor's hand and can't help a grin, and he gets that _look_ again (it happens sometimes, mostly when she's smiling; his eyes will soften and he'll smile back like he can't _not_, like she is all he sees, and she's never exactly breathing steady afterwards), and she's going to _tell him tonight_.

But first things first: "We might as well embrace it, I guess," she tells him, and stands up to move her seat around the table so they're next to each other. Joe walks up then, with perfect timing, and she tells him: "We'll be sharing the spaghetti with meatballs, thanks."

-xxx-

She has a lot of opportunities to tell him, throughout the course of the evening.

She could tell him after they do the sharing spaghetti kiss, which he calls incredibly cheesy, and she agrees, and they're both trying not to laugh at themselves right until their lips connect. And they kiss, soft and slow and it's still really stupid but it's _good_ too, and when they pull back they're smiling, sauce on their lips.

She could tell him when Tony stops by their table with dessert he made personally and compliments for Victor's latest ("oh?") but obviously _most special_ ("uh-huh") lady friend, or when he agrees that she's special, or when he leaves a tip that pretty much equals the cost of their free meal.

She could tell him in the car, his hand resting on her thigh and her heart beating fast, blood running hot and _hungry_, and she kisses his jaw at a red light and he makes this strained little noise, drives faster.

She could tell him when they walk into his bedroom, stumble really, because they've been fumbling at each other since the elevator, trailing clothes in from the front door, and she sees – flowers. A bouquet of red roses, sitting on the pillow, and when she breaks away to pick them up he grabs a remote from somewhere and suddenly there's music playing quietly from somewhere, and she spins back to him, flowers clutched to her chest, dress hanging open, hair wild. He's shrugging his shirt off, his belt is unbuckled, and he grins at her, says, "I've got wine in the fridge, too, if you –" which is when she tosses the roses at the bedside table and cuts him off with a kiss, runs her fingers through his hair and jumps to wrap her legs around his waist when he lifts her up to carry her to the bed, and soon she's tugging him closer, closer, gasping his name and she _could tell him right now_ but she doesn't.

Ruby doesn't tell him until they're done, until they're lying panting in a tangle of sheets (and even without the shadow of deadly magic hanging over them it was _just_ as intense, of course it was, that's what she was afraid of wasn't it, the pure overwhelming _emotion_ of this, more potent than even their significant physical chemistry, too much to ever deny). She waits until they're staring up at the ceiling, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her, breathing finally starting to slow.

"I love you," she says. Hears – not his breath catching, exactly, but shuddering on a long, slow inhale, and his hand clutches at her arm hard enough to bruise for anyone else.

"I love you too," he says, voice rough, and Ruby smiles, sharp (she's no dog but a wolf).

She kisses him right above his heart, then scrapes her teeth over the same spot and watches it turn red, red, red.

-xxx-

In the morning he wakes up looking for color again. Maybe he'll always do that.

Ruby breathes him in deep and smiles. She probably will too.


End file.
